From the Donner Party to the Salem witch trials, Alma Katsu has built a reputation for reshaping history and classic lore through a lens of psychological dread. Now, she’s taking on Oscar Wilde. In her new novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray gets a terrifying internet-age reboot—dragging Wilde’s classic into a world of algorithmic clout, deepfake beauty standards, and manufactured perfection that refuse to stay confined to the internet.
In her chilling new novel Incarnate, Katsu explores the pressures of modern visibility and the sinister point at which our curated online identities begin to shape us rather than the other way around.
Incarnate centers on Dorothy Wagner, a woman who has spent her life desperate to be seen. After failing to build a viable audience as an influencer, she takes a job at a company developing cutting-edge deepfake technology. Working in secret, she creates Isabella—an impossibly beautiful digital avatar who becomes an overnight global social media phenomenon. But as Isabella attracts millions of obsessive followers, lucrative brand deals, and a life of her own, Dorothy finds her grip slipping over the digital creation that was supposed to grant her complete control.
To mark the book’s publication this September 22, CinemaChords sat down with Katsu to discuss her new novel, the sinister psychological implications of our digital footprints, and our doom-eager habit of measuring ourselves against manufactured illusions of perfection.